CYTown and the City
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Bronwyn's Council Preview |
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Usually some of the agenda items will have a period where members of the public may briefly speak to Council.
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The Ames City Council meeting is at 6 p.m. at City Hall. The regular council meeting agenda includes the following. Note that you can generally click on individual agenda items below to get the full staff report or other explanation.
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24. Staff Report on CYTown Development.
For several years now, ISU has been developing the concept of CyTown, a commercial/residential/entertainment district at the Iowa State Center. Not only do they believe it will add a vibrancy to the area, it is also the mechanism by which they can fund much-needed renovations to the main four buildings at the Iowa State Center. (Hilton, Scheman, Fisher, and C.Y. Stephens). The City's concerns with CyTown were two-fold. First, the university doesn't pay property tax. Second, per State code, they aren't allowed to compete with the private sector in certain ways. In order to come to a compromise on these issues, a Memorandum of Understanding is being proposed, which outlines responsibilities for maintenance and establishes a payment-in-lieux-of-tax (PILOT) to be paid to the City. For the first two decades, this PILOT would be reinvested in the ISU Center, and then would gradually revert to the City.
Council isn't being asked to make any decisions at this meeting, rather this is just information to digest for now. We'll be discussing this topic at a future meeting, likely in April.
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25. Motion approving City Council Values, Goals, and Tasks for January 1, 2024 to December 31, 2025.
This is a follow up to our goal setting meeting from 1/6/2024. Staff are asking for clarification on two items. One is a goal referencing a specific Community and Regional Planning class, and staff are asking if Council would like to change it to more general language about public engagement. The second question relates to Council's interest in encouraging the Transit (CyRide) Board to pursue "fare-free" CyRide. After clarification on these two issues, Council will be asked to confirm these goals.
Communications to Council: The following items are requests and communications to Council that aren't published on the agenda, so we won't deliberate them substantially. This includes staff reports and communications or requests from constituents and developers. Typically, Council will ask city staff for more information, put the item on a future agenda for deliberation and possible action, or just accept the communication, taking no further action.
Thanks for reading,
Bronwyn Beatty-Hansen
Ames City Council, Ward 1